Installation requirements vary based on your application needs. The different editions of SQL Server accommodate the unique performance, runtime, and price requirements of organizations and individuals. The SQL Server components that you install also depend on your specific requirements. The following sections help you understand how to make the best choice among the editions and components available in SQL Server.

The SQL Server Evaluation edition is available for a 180-day trial period.

For the latest release notes and what's new information, see the following:

SQL Server Standard edition delivers basic data management and business intelligence database for departments and small organizations to run their applications and supports common development tools for on-premise and cloud - enabling effective database management with minimal IT resources.

Web

SQL Server Web edition is a low total-cost-of-ownership option for Web hosters and Web VAPs to provide scalability, affordability, and manageability capabilities for small to large scale Web properties.

Developer

SQL Server Developer edition lets developers build any kind of application on top of SQL Server. It includes all the functionality of Enterprise edition, but is licensed for use as a development and test system, not as a production server. SQL Server Developer is an ideal choice for people who build and test applications.

Express editions

Express edition is the entry-level, free database and is ideal for learning and building desktop and small server data-driven applications. It is the best choice for independent software vendors, developers, and hobbyists building client applications. If you need more advanced database features, SQL Server Express can be seamlessly upgraded to other higher end versions of SQL Server. SQL Server Express LocalDB is a lightweight version of Express that has all of its programmability features, runs in user mode and has a fast, zero-configuration installation and a short list of prerequisites.

Using SQL Server with an Internet Server

On an Internet server, such as a server that is running Internet Information Services (IIS), you will typically install the SQL Server client tools. Client tools include the client connectivity components used by an application connecting to an instance of SQL Server.

Note

Although you can install an instance of SQL Server on a computer that is running IIS, this is typically done only for small Web sites that have a single server computer. Most Web sites have their middle-tier IIS systems on one server or a cluster of servers, and their databases on a separate server or federation of servers.

Using SQL Server with client/server applications

You can install just the SQL Server client components on a computer that is running client/server applications that connect directly to an instance of SQL Server. A client components installation is also a good option if you administer an instance of SQL Server on a database server, or if you plan to develop SQL Server applications.

Deciding among SQL Server components

Use the Feature Selection page of the SQL Server Installation Wizard to select the components to include in an installation of SQL Server. By default, none of the features in the tree are selected.

Use the information in the following tables to determine the set of features that best fits your needs.

Server components

Description

SQL Server Database Engine

SQL Server Database Engine includes the Database Engine, the core service for storing, processing, and securing data, replication, full-text search, tools for managing relational and XML data, in database analytics integration, and PolyBase integration for access to Hadoop and other heterogeneous data sources, and the Data Quality Services (DQS) server.

Reporting Services includes server and client components for creating, managing, and deploying tabular, matrix, graphical, and free-form reports. Reporting Services is also an extensible platform that you can use to develop report applications.

Integration Services

Integration Services is a set of graphical tools and programmable objects for moving, copying, and transforming data. It also includes the Data Quality Services (DQS) component for Integration Services.

Master Data Services

Master Data Services (MDS) is the SQL Server solution for master data management. MDS can be configured to manage any domain (products, customers, accounts) and includes hierarchies, granular security, transactions, data versioning, and business rules, as well as an Add-in for Excel that can be used to manage data.

Provides a highly simple and intuitive graphical user interface to connect to the DQS server, and perform data cleansing operations. It also allows you to centrally monitor various activities performed during the data cleansing operation.

SQL Server Data Tools

SQL Server Data Tools provides an IDE for building solutions for the Business Intelligence components: Analysis Services, Reporting Services, and Integration Services.

(Formerly called Business Intelligence Development Studio).

SQL Server Data Tools also includes "Database Projects", which provides an integrated environment for database developers to carry out all their database design work for any SQL Server platform (both on and off premise) within Visual Studio. Database developers can use the enhanced Server Explorer in Visual Studio to easily create or edit database objects and data, or execute queries.

Connectivity Components

Installs components for communication between clients and servers, and network libraries for DB-Library, ODBC, and OLE DB.

Documentation

Description

SQL Server Books Online

Core documentation for SQL Server.

Developer and Evaluation Editions
For features supported by Developer and Evaluation editions, see features listed for the SQL Server Enterprise Edition in the tables below.

1 Enterprise Edition with Server + Client Access License (CAL) based licensing (not available for new agreements) is limited to a maximum of 20 cores per SQL Server instance. There are no limits under the Core-based Server Licensing model. For more information, see Compute Capacity Limits by Edition of SQL Server.

2 On Enterprise Edition, the number of nodes is the operating system maximum. On Standard edition there is support for two nodes.

3 On Enterprise Edition, provides support for up to 8 secondary replicas - including 2 synchronous secondary replicas.

4 Standard Edition supports basic availability groups. A basic availability group supports two replicas, with one database. For more information about basic availability groups, see Basic Availability Groups.

RDBMS scalability and performance

Feature

Enterprise

Standard

Web

Express with Advanced Services

Express

Columnstore 1

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Large object binaries in clustered columnstore indexes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Online non-clustered columnstore index rebuild

Yes

No

No

No

No

In-Memory OLTP 1

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes, 2

Yes

Stretch Database

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Persistent Main Memory

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Multi-instance support

50

50

50

50

50

Table and index partitioning

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Data compression

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Resource Governor

Yes

No

No

No

No

Partitioned Table Parallelism

Yes

No

No

No

No

Multiple Filestream containers

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

NUMA Aware and Large Page Memory and Buffer Array Allocation

Yes

No

No

No

No

Buffer Pool Extension

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

IO Resource Governance

Yes

No

No

No

No

Delayed Durability

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Automatic Tuning

Yes

No

No

No

No

Batch Mode Adaptive Joins

Yes

No

No

No

No

Batch Mode Memory Grant Feedback

Yes

No

No

No

No

Interleaved Execution for Multi-Statement Table Valued Functions

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Bulk insert improvements

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

1 In-Memory OLTP data size and Columnstore segment cache are limited to the amount of memory specified by edition in the Scale Limits section. The max degrees of parallelism is limited. The degrees of process parallelism (DOP) for an index build is limited to 2 DOP for the Standard Edition and 1 DOP for the Web and Express Editions. This refers to columnstore indexes created over disk-based tables and memory-optimized tables.